Southern Science (2024)

15/10/2024

Check out how researchers at The University of Alabama and The University of South Alabama are trying to find innovative ways to solve microplastic pollution.

With NOAA grants, two Alabama research teams take aim at microplastic pollution

13/10/2024

In 2023, Alabama settled a civil rights complaint alleging that the state was discriminating against Black residents by not providing adequate sewage treatment in a poor, rural county. A year later, slow progress is being made to close the gap.

23/09/2024

Alabama lags behind many other states in its management of water use. As extreme heat, changing weather patterns, industry and population continue to influence the available freshwater, advocates like the Alabama Rivers Alliance say the state needs to do more to understand and protect its water resources.

Despite plentiful resources, Alabama may need more water management

13/08/2024

“We’re talking about this amazing, amazing place of life. But we also recognize that when you have so much, there’s so much to lose.”
The Mobile-Tensaw delta's ecological diversity and importance are making national news in this piece from the Associated Press.

Alabama's Mobile-Tensaw Delta is a lush, vibrant and surprisingly intact more than 400-square-mile (1,036-square-kilometer) expanse of cypress swamps, oxbow lakes, marshland, hardwood stands and rivers.

07/08/2024

Two-tenths of a cent doesn’t sound like much. But multiplied by the annual electricity produced at a solar-energy farm, that fraction of a penny can rack up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That’s why renewable energy advocacy groups like Energy Alabama and the Southern Renewable Energy Association (SREA) are opposed to Alabama Power’s new integration fee for solar and wind energy producers, which was approved this spring.

New Alabama Power fee will deter renewable energy investment, solar advocates say

16/07/2024

Southern Science won first place in non-deadline digital reporting for the Society of Professional Journalist's 2024 Green Eyeshade Awards! Here's the article that took home the prize:

Small towns need funding, partnership in the face of climate disasters by Sydney Cromwell The tornado siren in the town of Parrish hasn’t worked for at least three years. Probably longer. It was br…

09/07/2024

Alabama, Georgia and Florida have been fighting over water resources for more than three decades. While Alabama and Georgia's governors have proposed a new agreement, it still has hurdles to clear before it can bring peace to the ACF river basin.
“It’s just a very touchy subject to have a river basin that’s subject to so many different kinds of uses up and down the system,” said Gil Rogers, the director of the Georgia office of the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC).

Months after Ala., Ga. governors’ agreement, questions remain on whether it will end ‘water wars’

03/06/2024

“In our whole watershed, this is the only dam we have. And for nature and for the critters, free-flowing water is best.”
Learn more about the grants recently awarded to remove this former hydroelectric dam from the Pea River in Elba, Alabama, and how this could impact both migrating fish and the nearby town.

Two federal grants will fund next stages of dam removal project

24/05/2024

On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency denied Alabama’s coal ash regulation program, which the EPA says does not meet federal minimum standards for safe disposal.

The federal agency says the state’s plan was not as protective as federal standards, allowing toxic waste to remain in unlined pits that may contaminate groundwater. Alabama officials say they will appeal.

23/05/2024

Under the Clean Air Act of 1970, the government regulates six of the most common pollutants that heavy industry produces. But manufacturing plants that use fossil fuels, like those in McIntosh, create 188 airborne pollutants considered toxic emissions, many of which are carcinogenic, explains Hansen.
“This creates a cumulative impact, and if there’s more than one plant in an area, you start looking at what is called a ‘sacrifice zone’ where residents who live near the vicinity are sacrificed for the sake of industry,” Hansen says.
McIntosh, he says, is one such sacrifice zone.

A community has watched generations of residents suffer from debilitating diseases. Could chemical exposure be to blame?

21/05/2024

When a coal mine is abandoned, it leaves safety and environmental hazards behind. See how Alabama's mine reclamation program is solving those problems and reclaiming abandoned mines for new purposes.

New funding to turn former mines into ecological, development opportunities

02/05/2024

Rapidly rising seas are combining with storms to generate epic floods, threatening lives, property and livelihoods. Mobile County's Fowl River area experienced just such a flood last June.

Alabama and the U.S. Gulf Coast region have seen a sudden burst of sea level rise, spurring flooding in low areas exacerbated by rainfall and high tides.

30/04/2024

“The idea that this quarry won’t have an adverse effect on the community is laughable if you just look at the flood plan. This quarry will be the demise of the Belle Mina community."
Residents of the small town of Belle Mina and its neighboring communities are trying to stop the approval of a limestone quarry right next door. Opponents say there are "so many problems" with the quarry plan.

Belle Mina residents fear proposed quarry will cause irreversible damage

26/04/2024

Regulatory maps confirmed that mining was scheduled to reach the area beneath the Griffice home in February, just days before the explosion occurred. In its lawsuit, the family has alleged that Oak Grove Mine, its parent company, and a contractor are responsible for the explosion and, ultimately, for Griffice’s death.

Following the death of a grandfather, Crimson Oak Grove Resources has left a community afraid for their homes and lives. An expert warns one resident may need to evacuate her home while she still can.

30/03/2024

More than a year later, the story of the Moody landfill fire isn't over.

Community members are working with a local environmental nonprofit to facilitate the potential testing, but Alabama’s top environment regulator said prior testing for PFAS in water sources served “no purpose.”

25/03/2024

Alabama has more than 200 fish consumption advisories, noting places where it isn't safe to eat your catch.
The Safe & Healthy Outdoor Recreation (SHOR) Act, intended to make these advisories more accessible for the public, was introduced in the state Legislature in 2023 and 2024, but it has now stalled for the second time.

Fishing advisory bill stalls two years in a row

23/03/2024

The lawsuit over the explosion at a home in Adger claims that the company’s actions were negligent and led to injuries that, if not fatal, will be life-changing.

Oak Grove Mine has a long history of safety violations. In 2006, federal officials evacuated its workers because of dangerous levels of methane, a flammable gas.

06/03/2024

“After we learned that there was a lot of PFAS in our water, since then we’ve been trying to create a much more extensive testing method, so we could get a foundational baseline of what we’re dealing with,” said Lucas Allison, Coosa Riverkeeper's field manager.

Expanded testing sets baseline understanding for education, advocacy on PFAS chemicals.

17/02/2024

“If a piece of land like this were sold off and clear-cut, which we understand was an option, that would have been a travesty,” Mitch Reid, state director for The Nature Conservancy in Alabama, said. ”Not only because it would have lost an enormous amount of stored carbon [from the trees], but then you would lose that wetland system that is so important to the the Delta.
“If you just clear cut that out, you end up with sedimentation, you could lose birds, turtles, fish, any host of species.”

In a major conservation win, the Land Between the Rivers, some of Alabama’s most sensitive and ecologically important land is being preserved forever, thanks to a multi-million dollar collaboration among The Nature Conservancy in Alabama, Patagonia, and an undisclosed donor.

15/02/2024

“The more you get people excited at that age with what they could do with a science degree, the more options open up for their world and giving back to our coastal Alabama."
Read more about STEMMing the Tide, a program trying to bring innovative, community-focused science lessons into middle school classrooms in the Africatown neighborhood of Mobile.

Program teaches kids about science, justice in Africatown by Sydney Cromwell Healing gardens. Sea kayaks. Drone soccer. They’re all part of STEMMing the Tide, a project that aims to change school c…

09/02/2024

If the EPA believes no risks exist, Cahaba Riverkeeper David Butler said, they should be transparent and regularly release their data to the public.

“Over the last month, they’ve been out there almost daily,” Butler said. “And so why isn’t that reflected in that public facing website? All these people have questions about it, and they’re not giving any answers. I don’t understand it.”

Richard Harp couldn’t believe his ears when he learned the massive underground landfill fire near Moody, just a football field away from his home, is still burning and may never be extinguished. Read more.

28/01/2024

Potentially big news for the people and waterways near Plant Barry.

Alabama Power is partnering with Eco Material Technologies to build a plant that could recycle 90% or more of the coal ash at Alabama Power's Plant Barry in Mobile County.

19/01/2024

“We have lost the firepower of environmental reporting we used to have. And in place of it, we have almost no coverage.”

This is just one reason why Southern Science exists — Alabama deserves high-quality environmental reporting.

A Floodlight investigation found Alabama Power runs a news service and its foundation bought a Black newspaper. Neither reports on high electric bills or utility-related pollution

16/01/2024

Little USA is a proposed project that would bring together solar power, agriculture, workforce development and an electric vehicle charging station on a family-owned property in Union Springs.

Proposed solar campus would bring job training, renewable energy to Black Belt town by Sydney Cromwell When Herb Ferrette looks at his family’s 25-acre property in Union Springs, he sees green. Rig…

15/01/2024

“I think that the climate movement, the activists that are trying to save the world and make a change, the piece that they’re missing is the faith piece,” said Rhoda Vanderhart of Gulf Coast Creation Care.
Read more about how some Alabama groups are pairing their faith with climate activism.

Religious climate activists focus on energy, justice in the Southeast by Sydney Cromwell Climate anxiety. Crisis fatigue. Whatever you call it, spend enough time thinking and reading about the real…

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